Excerpt: Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

By Shawn Speakman on July 9, 2013

On August 13, 2013, Del Rey Books and Naomi Novik will publish Blood of Tyrants, the penultimate volume in the Temeraire series.

It is the second to last book in a series that has captured the imaginations of fantasy readers all over the world. And not only that, but gained the attention of director Peter Jackson, who brought rights to produce live-action adaptations of the novels in the future. You know Smaug in The Hobbit? Yeah, in my opinion, he’s just a test run for Temeraire!

Water lapping salt at his cheek roused him, a fresh cold trickle finding its way into the hollow of sand where his face rested. It spurred him: with an effort he pushed to hands and knees and then up, to stagger indecorously along the shore and fall again at the foot of several gnarled old pines clinging to the edge of the beach.

His mouth was dry and cracked, his tongue swollen. His hands were clotted with sand. The wind bit sharply through the sodden wool of his coat, stained black with water, and he was barefoot. Slowly, he unfastened the remnants of a leather harness from around his waist: buckles and clasps of good steel, still bright, but heavily waterlogged; he let it fall to the sand. The sword-belt he kept. The blade when he drew it was bright Damascus steel, the hilt wrapped in black ray-skin, the collar the golden head of a dragon. He stared down at it, without recognition.

In five weeks, Blood of Tyrants will be published in the US. That’s not far off. Therefore, I decided to post Chapter One from the book! Continue reading the chapter HERE!